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Kings of counterfeit Gucci and Nike empire back behind bars

Two counterfeit kings who sat on top of a £500,000 empire of fake designer clothes were each starting jail terms today.

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Nazakat Hussain and Ali Asghar from Walsall had an Aladdin's cave of knock-off Gucci, Nike, Lacoste, Superdry and Ralph Lauren items in Oldbury.

Hussain set up the illegal operation on the very same day he was released from prison for an earlier carbon copy offence.

He was previously jailed and had to pay back £250,000 for flooding London markets with £1 million of bogus goods. He was caught out this time following a routine police stop.

Traffic officers Pc Paul Trowman and Pc Ian Adams from West Midlands Police opened the rear doors of his van to check if it was illegally carrying passengers and discovered £25,000 of counterfeit clothes and trainers.

They also found keys with a fob that gave the name of a storage unit alongside junction 2 of the M5 at Oldbury that held a vast hoard of bogus goods with a total value of at least £490,000.

Labels including Adidas and Timberland were also discovered amongst the haul.

Hussain, 41, and Asghar, 45, were jailed for three-and-a-half and three years respectively at Wolverhampton Crown Court this week after admitting involvement in the distribution of counterfeit goods.

Some would have been sold though Sport Box, the now defunct shop run by the pair in West Bromwich High Street.

The van was stopped by police in Spon Lane, West Bromwich, on October 13, 2012.

Mr Edward Soulsby, prosecuting, said: "When they opened the back they saw articles of such poor quality they arrested the two men in the vehicle on suspicion of being in possession of counterfeit property."

Hussain, of Hospital Street, Walsall, was travelling in the van and Asghar, who has since moved to Huddersfield, was driving behind as they headed for Sport Box.

Miss Amrisha Parathalingam, defending father-of-five Hussain, said: "His previous offending dates back to 2008 and some of it was related to the Sport Box shop.

"From the day of his release he went back to what he had been doing before."

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